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Undergraduate Module Descriptor

LAW3205: Law, Testimony and Trauma

This module descriptor refers to the 2023/4 academic year.

Module Aims

You will take part in developing knowledge in the field by conducting your own research project on the legal response to a traumatic event that you will choose to analyse. During lectures and seminars, you will receive guidance and support in developing both socio-legal research skills and research skills relevant to the specific academic field. Socio-legal research skills include: planning a research project; ensuring that the project addresses the research question consistently; analysing a case study from a social perspective and from a legal perspective; building a bibliography according to decolonising principles; and developing critical thinking. Research tools specific to the academic field include: learning how to listen to accounts on trauma, how to choose relevant sources in the field (academic, non-academic and artistic) and techniques of self-care, grounding and concentration using mindfulness and art. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Demonstrate the ability to critically examine how legal responses to traumatic events influence society.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the elements required for a legal response to a traumatic event to be effective and empowering.
Discipline-Specific Skills3. Demonstrate the ability to critically examine the significance of legal narratives, the ways by which they are created and their influence on society.
4. Demonstrate a critical understanding of how different approaches to lawyering shape legal narratives.
5. Exhibit socio-legal research skills.
Personal and Key Skills6. Exhibit the ability to design an independent research project.
7. Demonstrate the ability to conduct group presentations, provide feedback and critique to your peers, and mature as a consequence of the critique and feedback you yourself receive.
8. Demonstrate an understanding of research conducted according to decolonising principles.